Much Ado About Nollywood?

Up until the past few days, I have not been a big fan of nollywood, yes I said it. I did however enjoy some of the soap operas of the '90s and a few flicks here and there. Yet still somewhere in the fabrics of nollywood I found complacency, mediocrity and somewhat of a disregard for the viewers amongst over misgivings, and I disliked it. Slowly but surely I became a non-viewer, and then the occultic phase of nollywood started, the malapropisms increased and it was a done deal for me, I quit (something I don't do often...lol.)

Not long after I stopped watching nollywood movies, I left naija, and the disregard grew even larger, partly because I got to realize that non-Africans (Ghanaians in particular) loved them, especially the absurdity of its rituals. When I pried to find out what they truly loved about it, I found out they loved its wrongs (kind of like what you see when u watch West African Idol and see the naija Michael Jacksons...lol) - Yes, you are entertained but you know it was a bad performance. I gave them a second chance, and now I could predict the entire movie after only 5 - 10 mins. The performance had not really improved and so I went back into nollywood recession. I honestly did want to see improvement in the industry but it hurt to see mediocrity pass for Nigerian production. Of course in dialogs with friends about this subject we always talked about lack of infrastructure and financing issues, but these factors should not necessarily have affected the acting. I wondered if the actors and actresses had rehearsal sessions, or if there was any screening sessions or directors review.

Anyways, it appears 5 years is enough time for things to change in nollywood, as they say: "time changes yesterday." My point is that nollywood has gotten better, the infrastructure is still not where it needs to be yet, but I can say that directing and acting has improved. I say this after recently seeing only two productions - one soap opera (SuperStory :-)) and a movie (Caught in the Middle). SuperStory did have a good story, good acting. Caught in the Middle kinda blew me away for a naija movie because I did not expect much, but the story was great (especially in our society 2day), the casting was amazing (R.M.D and Dakore are so amazing), the soundstrack was good, the directing was good, even the ending credits was good. I was impressed...I am still impressed. I know it might seem like I abandoned nollywood and now I am coming back when things are getting better, but the truth is I criticized them when they were, in my opinion doing wrong (the same way a mother would scold an unruly child), and now they get credit for improvement. They are not there yet, but they are making progress.

That's my spill on nollywood for 2day.

ciao
......H2O